
Class. 
Book 






.$ 






JO SI AH AND LINCOLN, 



THE CREAT REFORMERS. 






A TRIBUTE TO THE WORTH AND WORK OF OUR MARTYR-PRESIDENT, 



DELIVERED IN THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, BASTON, PA., 



On Ka*» J)uy, .liii'e I, 1H«5. 



I.Y II I K PA8TOK, 




Rev. CORNELIUS H. EDGAR, D. D. 

11 



EASTOJJ, PA.: 
LEWIS GORDON. PRINTER. 

18fW>. 












■ • 1 - ' 



OUR AMERICAN JOSIAH. 



Easton, Pa., June 2, 1865. 

Rev. C. H. Edgar, D. D. : 

Reverend and dear sir: 
Your able, touching and eloquent dis- 
course upon the National Fast Day, was 
listened to with deep interest and great sat- 
isfaction by those present. 

The undersigned, believing that its circu- 
lation would do good, respectfully ask the 
favor of having the manuscript for publica- 
tion. "Very truly, 




H. D. Maxwell, 
Traill Green, 
John Green, 
E. F. Stewart, 
John Pollock, 



John Vanderveer, 
E. D. Millard, 
R. S. Chidsey. 
S. Transeau, 
H. Green. 



This sermon is given to the press in re- 
sponse to the foregoing note. C. H. E. 



And all Judali and Jerusalem 
mourned for Josiah. — 2 Chron- 
icles xxxv. 24. 

The mourning for Josiah was so spon- 
taneous, so sincere, and so general, that, 
for a long time after, it was spoken of 
as unprecedented and never equalled. 
From that time until now — nearly three 
and twenty centuries, no ruler was 
ever so lamented as the simple-heart- 
ed, honest, young and sturdy Josi- 
ah, — the God-fearing, patriotic, great 
reformer. His character and work have 
in our day found a parallel, and the 
mourning of which our text speaks has 
been surpassed. We do not assert that 



a greater and a ber^f ^rffi^j sls^rately 
passed away from among us — caught up 
like Elijah in a chariot of fire, but we 
dare say the grief is as sincere, and the 
mourning far more widely extended. 
Not intimating the least detraction from 
the merits of the reformation by the 
good King Josiah, we honestly believe 
that larger numbers will be benefitted, 
and more marked and permanent results 
for good will take date with the admin- 
istration of the equally good and not 
less great President Lincoln. 

" And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah : 
and all the singing-men and the sing- 
ing-women spake of Josiah in their la- 
mentations." This tribute to worth 
and this expression of mourning for a 
good man and a great ruler has been 
repeated and multiplied in our national 
funeral which has continued for forty- 
eight days and is this day consummated 
by religious services throughout the 
land. The priests and the choirs in 
our Israel have taken up the weeping 
prophet's lamentation, and with bowed 
heads have exclaimed and on plaintive 
harps have sung, The breath of our nos- 
trils, the anointed of the Lord was talc- 
en away in their pits, of whom we said, 
under his shadow we shall live. 

The exercises for which we meet are 



expressive of an appreciation of true 
worth and great services : — they also 
signify an acknowledgement of God 
and our gratitude to him for a great 
gift : — these public gatherings at the 
grave of the dead on which the grass in 
its new growth is not yet green pledge 
us not only to the affectionate memory 
of our Martyr but to the imitation of 
his character and the perpetuation of 
his principles : — we mean also by our 
solemn assembling, to declare to the 
Sovereign Ruler that we are humbled 
under his rebukes, and that we repent 
of the sins which have brought his 
heavy hand upon us and stained our 
glory and reduced our pride. These I 
take to be the lessons of the occasion. 
Little need be said to elaborate or enforce 
these lessons after all that you have 
heard from this pulpit, and all the ser- 
mons you have read, with which, for 
weeks, the press has teemed. Let us 
suspend these lessons and recur to the 
character and public work of him at 
whose death all Judah and Jerusalem 
mourned. If you see a parallelism be- 
tween King Josiah and President Lin- 
coln, you cannot say the preacher makes 
it. If it exists, God made it. It is 
ours to read it, mark it, learn it, and 
inwardly digest it. 

I must refer you to the sacred record 
for details as to the character and pub- 
lic labors of the good Josiah. I shall 
be as brief in the resume and exposition 
as my jiurpo.se will allow. Hear this 

certific.it i- and endorsement "Like un- 
to Joniah was there no king before bitn, 

that turned to tlio Lord with all his 



heart, and with all his soul and with all 
his might, according to all the laws of 
Moses ; neither after him arose there any 
like him." Let us rehearse a few items. 
Ho was young and unskilled in the craft 
of politicians when he was called to the 
administration of the government. Pre- 
ceding him with an interval of only two 
years was the long and corrupt reign of 
Manasseh, — one of the worst of men. 
Manasseh had neutralized the work and 
influence of the pious but not strong 
Hezekiah — his predecessor, building 
again idolatrous altars, passing his sons 
through the fire of Moloch, using en- 
chantments, dealing with familiar spir- 
its, and wizards, and workingmuchwick- 
edness to provoke the Lord to anger. 
Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood 
very much. He reigned fifty-five years 
and was succeeded by Amon who reign- 
ed two years, walking in the way in 
which his father walked. Here was a 
period of fifty-seven years of wickedness 
and corruption . Surely the government 
needed reforming. It needed new life- 
blood infused into it to prevent a total 
decay and demise, and tc perpetuate its 
life and to fulfil its mission. It was to 
such a state of things that Josiah suc- 
ceeded. He was chosen by the people. 
He was young, and pure, and did that 
which was right in the Bight of the Lord, 
and turned not aside to the right hand 
or the left. Imagine the difficulties 
under which lie began and prosecuted 
tho work of reformation to whieh he felt 
himself oalled. There were usages of 
more than half a century which he was 
bound to ignore and annul ; and as 



usage Is a kind of sacred sanction it re- 
quired a firm hand as well as a pure 
heart to set himself against time-strong 
customs. You can easily conceive how 
many must have been involved in one 
way or another in idolatry as a business 
as well as a religion. Priests served 
the altars for their living ; mechanics 
built them ; farmers found a market for 
their cattle as victims ; weavers and 
seamstresses and artists found a sale for 
their tapestries and their skilful works 
for ornament. When the proclamation 
of the total abolishment of idolatry was 
issued, what a howl of devilish hatred 
of the good king there must have been 
from those whose occupation was gone ; 
and what a scorn and contempt by those 
genteel and highly cultured idolaters 
for this stripling reformer who had pre- 
sumed to set himself against the doc- 
trines and usages in which two genera- 
tions had been educated. No doubt 
many said it was a hard thing that those 
who had grown rich and whose entire 
business and family comforts depended 
upon the continuance of the long-estab- 
lisned policies of the preceding admin- 
istrations must come to poverty if the 
plans and proclamations of this young 
reformer were allowed to prevail. So 
it was not an easy task for the pious and 
patriotic king. But he was right; he 
was sure he was right, and so he '''went 
ahead." "He did that which was right 
in the sight of the Lord, and turned not 
aside to the right hand or to the left." 
And he was stronger than the usages, 
stronger than the traditions, stronger 
than the pecuniary interests, stronger 



than the arrogant, genteel, indolatrous 
aristocracy arrayed against him. He 
won the day, 

"For right is right, since God is God, 
And right the day must win ; 

To doubt would be disloyalty, 
To falter would be sin." 

The following were the leading acts 
and doings of his reign. He* caused 
the temple to be repaired which had 
been neglected and filled with rubbish 
and filth while the great majorities of 
of the people had been wedded to idol- 
atry. In prosecution of this work the 
"book of the law" was found in the 
house of the Lord. Of course the in- 
stitutes of Moses and the moral code 
had been neglected, — the very book 
containing them, which was their con- 
stitution, having been lost and forgot- 
ten. The discovery of this book was 
reported to the king, who, when it was 
read to him, rent his clothes in expres- 
sion of repentance in behalf of the peo- 
ple, and in grief that as a nation they 
had exposed themselves to the wrath of 
Jehovah. He institutes immediately a 
solemn inquiry of the Lord as to duty. 
In view of the evils threatened because 
the people had forsaken the God of their 
fathers, he convokes the Senators and 
rehearses to them the law : and then 
swears them and himself swears to walk 
after the Lord and keep his command- 
ments. With steady purpose and stur- 
dy blows and untiring vigor he proceeds 
upon the mission to which he felt him- 
self called. His reign was long enough, 
for he finished his work, though he died 
in his prime. In that short time, and 



in face of all the opposition he met, he 
rebuilt and cleansed the temple, re-es- 
tablished the Passover, destroyed the 
altars and vessels of Baal, caused the 
leaders who had seduced the people 
from their allegiance to Jehovah to be 
put to death, and he put away the work- 
ers with familiar spirits. In one of his 
proclamations occur the words, "Keep 
the Passover unto the Lord your God 
as it is written in the book of the cove- 
nant." This shows us the man purpos- 
ing to carry out the institutes of Moses 
and Samuel, adhering to the constitu- 
tion which had been given to their fore- 
fathers, the spirit of which had, under 
the corrupt administrations of his two 
predecessors, qute died out. And sure- 
ly there was not holden such a Passover 
from the days of the judges that judged 
Israel, nor of the kings of Judah. And 
like unto him was no king before him, 
that turned to the Lord with all his 
heart, and with all his soul, and with 
all his might, according to ail the law 
of Moses, neither after him arose any 
like him. And when he died all Ju- 
dah and Jerusalem mourned for him. It 
was right. It was due. The memory 
of the just is blessed. The righteous 
shall bo had in everlasting remembrance. 
Tho mourning was spontaneous, public 
and merited. 1 1 is character was pure, 
his labors great, his services beneficial. 
You cannot withhold tho meed of your 
approbation of such a man, and of the 
success of labors so herculean. You 
honor yourselves, and you honor human 
nature, and you honor tho grace of 
tho Redeemer, when you applaud tho 



man who sets himself to do right in the 
fear of God, whether in a humble or in 
a more extended sphere. If the crowds 
in Jerusalem and the inhabitants of the 
villages and the peasants in the rural 
districts ceased from their labors and 
their recreations on the day in which 
Josiah was shot, and made a great mourn- 
ing for him for many days, and if strong 
men bent their heads and gave way to 
long-unaccustomed tears, you say it was 
a tribute to personal worth and to pub- 
lic usefulness ; and you say too, they 
honored themselves in thus mourning 
for the king who came suddenly to a vi- 
olent death when they thought his work 
was not yet done and fain hoped he had 
many years to live in which to serve his 
country. 

We have a similar occasion and as 
good cause to mourn. "We did mourn 
when the news was flashed through the 
land that President Lincoln had been 
assassinated. We do not cease to 
mourn. Though we wept while our af- 
fliction was fresh till it seemed that the 
fountains of tears would run dry — wept 
tears of pity, of grief, of rage, and of 
wrath, — and though so many startling 
events have occurred since that black 
day to occupy our thoughts, — and though 
all the land was draped in mourning, 
and millions thronged to join a funeral 
train of sixteen hundred miles in length, 
and tho voico of the orator was heard in 
eulogy from every rostrum, and tho 
prayers of pastors and solemn dirges as- 
cended from every synagogue and church 
and cathedral from tho centro to tho 
border, — and though our bereavement 



awakened the sympathies and condolence 
of peoples across the waters who had 
hitherto wished us no good, — so that in 
fact there has never been such mourn- 
ing, still, so far from having exhausted 
our grief and notwithstanding the good 
news of peace which has made us glad, 
we are called to spend one day in spe- 
cial commemoration and mourning and 
humiliation, and we think it well to as- 
semble in response to the call to pay 
another formal though I am sure it will 
not be a final tribute of a grateful na- 
tion to her beloved benefactor. 

With all your knowledge of the events 
of the four past years — a knowledge 
burnt in by war, the very fires of which 
have revealed and illuminated the hon- 
esty and wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, 
it is not necessary to go into a minute 
analysis of his character or a detail of 
the public events with which his name 
will stand forever indissolubly connect- 
ed. The parallelism between the char- 
acters of these reformers of twin-spirit, 
and the important and difficult work it 
was the mission of each respectively to 
perform, you must have perceived. If 
your conviction was carried that the 
mourning for the one was right, so was 
it right that such a funeral should be 
given, and that one day should be spe- 
cially devoted to religious ceremonies in 
commemoration of our American Jo- 
siah. 

In his antecedents Abraham Lincoln 
was not an unknown man, nor an untried 
one. He was however in a certain 
sense a new man. Having no tangling 
alliances with professional politicians 



and therefore asking favor of no one and 
owing favor to no one, he was called 
fresh from the people to such a work as 
no man in this nation if in all time has 
had and no man in all our future histo- 
ry will again have to accomplish He 
sets out on his journey to enter upon 
that work with calm reliance on God 
asking the people to pray for him, fully 
persuaded that without divine guidance 
he cannot succeed, and with it he can- 
not fail. Sublime simplicity ! What a 
child's spirit, what filial faith is this, 
and what a guarantee of heaven's wis- 
dom to inspire him, for the meek will he 
guide in judgment and the meek will he 
teach his icay. It is Josiah's spirit, 
and Josiah's God was his help in time 
of need. 

His great business was a single one, 
and that was to Rebind the Union. 
There was but one method of doing it 
and that was to unbind the slave. 
He did the latter, and thus accomplish- 
ed the former. 

He was called to his high office by 
the people at a time when the genius of 
freedom seemed weary of her stay with 
a people who had done her less honor 
than they professed. He unfurled the 
Stars and Stripes. Freedom saw her 
favorite banner in the hands of her 
faithful son. She perched upon it as 
he carried it forward to the rescue of the 
nation and of the rights of man. Here- 
after forever where that dear old flag 
shall float will freedom make her home, 
and the people rejoice in their nation's 
redemption and integrity. He was 
called to weld the broken chain which 



t; 



had held the States together, and to 
show that our fathers had not with so 
much cost and sacrifice spun only a rope 
of sand. He was called to rehuild the 
house — the temple of our nationality, 
and to bring out and republish that old 
book of the covenant which our fathers 
bequeathed us, the true intent and right 
interpretation of which had been for- 
gotten for at least one if not many ad- 
ministrations. That covenant said the 
Union is one, E pluribus unum. It 
was his business to republish and main- 
tain that doctrine. He has done it. In 
his way to the accomplishment of his 
mission lay a giant hindrance. It must 
be conquered or he must fail. The 
question came to be simply the union 

WITIIOUT SLAVERY, Or SLAVERY AY IT II- 

OUT UNION. It was not a new question 
to him, but he waited, patiently biding 
his time until he proposes the issue and 
puts the gravest and most complicated 
troubles which had shaken the nation 
from the beginning, in a form so simple 
that every one could understand it. To 
his clear calm mind it had for many 
years crystalized into this brief compre- 
hensive statement. When he came to 
work out the problem Providence had 
given him to 6olve, Slavery was old and 
strong and impudent. It had elbowed 
decent people out of the so-called belt 
society in the Capital. It had looked 
with eager eye on Texas and Mexico, 
and, under specious pretexts, bad ei 
teiidi'd it. area. it. had virtually spiked 
■ in- iii the nation's ships of war on 

the OOUt of Africa set to watch the 
hlavc-stealers. It had stunned to the 



floor in the halls of Congress the elo- 
quent advocate of freedom and an ad- 
vanced civilization than whom its boasting 
chivalry never had a superior in culture. 
It had said give, give, and still insatiate 
was ever making new demands. It had 
required the tongues of the preachers 
of the gospel of truth and liberty to say 
its heathen Shibboleth, and had silenced 
by expulsion and imprisonment those 
whose tongues could not and would not 
pronounce the jargon of barbarism. And 
after it had been outargued in the press, 
and on the floor of Congress, and on tho 
stump, and in the lyceum, and in the 
pulpit, it withdrew and aimed the guns 
which it had stolen from the nation 
against the very mother at whose breasts 
those had been nurtured who counsel- 
led that withdrawal and who manned 
those guns. So strong, so exacting, so 
defiant was 'slavery. Such the odds 
against which our standard-bearer had 
to contend. But truth is stronger than 
error : freedom is stronger than slavery : 
the love for the Union was stronger than 
the interests of a section or a class. We 
know the result of a conflict which has 
made the land shake and has arrested 
the attention of the world. Great is 
the gain, but how great our loss. 
Our grief is still poignant. l>ut there 
is a relief to our long anxieties, for 
the question is settled and the agony 
is over, tho Union is restored and our 
nation is free. The meteor rebellion 
which glared in the southern sky has 
burst, and, a> tiny might have known, 
those are most hurt who walked ID its 
lurid light boasting that it was a better 



sun than the old one which lighted and 
cheered alike their sires and ours. 

It was Mr. Lincoln's great work to 
reform the nation, and he did it by 
transforming the chattel into a man. 
He unbound the slave and so rebound 
the Union. He saw with sagacious eye 
the coming conflict and said in a nice 
contrast and exact meaning in the 
words, " I do not expect the Union to 
be dissolved, but I do expect it will 
cease to be divided." When the issue 
had been taken and while the war was 
raging with varying success, he spoke 
as with the voice of a sage and a proph- 
et, " This issue embraces more than the 
fate of the United States. It presents 
to the whole family of man the question 
whether a constitutional government 
can maintain its territorial integrity 
against its own domestic foes." He tells 
us that his heart gravitates towards the 
freedom of the individual man. His 
profession of faith on this subject is, 
" I am naturally anti-slavery. If slav- 
ery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." 
And yet he was not an enthusiast, ab- 
sorbed in the worship of the negro, for 
he well said, " In giving freedom to the 
slave we assure freedom to the free." 
He fully appreciated the measure and 
the meaning of the great war, and with 
an eye upon the future said, " The fiery 
trial through which we pass will light 
us down in honor or dishonor to the 
latest generation. We say that we are 
for the Union. The world will not for- 
get that we say this. We know how to 
save the Union. The world knows we 



do know how to save the Union. We 
— even we here — hold the power and 
bear the responsibility." Upon his 
conviction of the responsibility and of 
t':e efficiency of the means, and of the 
right to do what he did, and with a 
respectful regard for the opinions of his 
fellow men, and with the profoundest 
acknowledgment of Jehovah's justice 
and favor he closes that document which 
will make his name immortal — a state 
paper which turned four millions of 
things into men, with these memorable 
words, "Upon this, sincerely believed to 
be an act of justice, warranted by the 
constitution upon military necessity, I 
invoke the considerate judgment of man- 
kind, and the gracious favor of Almigh- 
ty God." With what fervency did he 
pray in that most religious state paper 
that was ever penned or published by 
any of our rulers — his last inaugural — 
and how speedily was it answered, 
" fondly do we hope, fervently do we 
pray, that this mighty scourge of war 
may speedily pass away." How beauti- 
ful and fitting, how tender, how paternal, 
and how christian, the last public official 
sentence that ever fell from his lips, 
"With malice toward none, with charity 
for all, with firmness in the right as God 
gives us to see the right, let us strive 
on to finish the work we are in, to bind 
up the nation's wound, to care for hitn 
who shall have borne the battle, and for 
his widow and orphans ; to do all which 
may achieve a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and among all nations." 
Such was the mission of our JosiAH, 
viz: to rebind the States, to demonstrate 



> 



nationality, to reform the people to the 
original idea of every man's inalienable 
right to life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness. Such was the method 
which his instinctive sense of justice 
prompted, and the constitution warrant- 
ed, and Providence put into his hands 
to use, to wit: the abolishment of slav- 
ery. He used the means ; he accom- 
plished the end. 

There have been enough to curse him. 
It was to be expected. The curses of 
such are an honor. Of a greater than 
he it was said "let him be crucified." 
But millions of a dark-browed and 
down-trodden race rise up from their low 
estate as things into recognition as men 
and call him blessed. Ages to come will 
find his story in their school-books. 
Every child in all future time in all the 
world will learn the name and worth of 
the great Emancipator. Washington, 
forever "first in the hearts of his coun- 
trymen," will no longer stand alone and 
without a rival, though himself far above 
all Grecian and all lloman heroes. His- 
tory, not disturbing the Father of our 
country in the loftiest niche in the tem- 
ple of Fame, will place beside him our 
own beloved Lincoln • and, as he as- 
cends to the honors he has earned, I 
seem to see the grand form of the hith- 
erto peerless Washington bonding to 
welcome his twin-patriot to that high 
eminence, generously and gladly sharing 
with him the people's profoundest rev- 
erence and undying gratitude. 

"Since Washington n<> man bath sat 

1 1 Doonsciom greatness all his own.) 
go good, 10 great, so grandly wise, 

So meekly on llie people's throne. 



Like Washington, he lived to save 
A race from bondage, and he died 

As loved, revered, and wept as he, 
To stand in glory by his side." 

"What an elevation ! He was once a 
poor boy. At the age of ten he went to 
hard labor. He had small opportunities 
at school. What made him great ? He 
would have been great even though he 
had n' ver been President, — great, 
though ie had never been famous. He 
was desirous of gettiug solid learning. 
He read the best books he could get, 
and thoroughly mastered whatever book 
or work he undertook. He had no idle 
or vicious habits. He was not profane. 
He used no intoxicating drinks. He 
controlled his appetites and governed 
his temper. He was an observer of the 
Sabbath, and a diligent reader of the 
Bible. He was an advocate of temper- 
ance. He had a reputation for honesty 
and. uprightness These are the ele- 
ments of greatuess. "He that is slow 
to anger is better than the mighty; and 
he that ruleth his spirit than he that 
taketh a city." 

We are too near him to measure him. 
While in the shadow of a mountain you 
can have no just conception of its gran- 
deur. Your first view of Niagara does 
not fill you with the awe which inspires 
you after you have stood again and again 
surveying its wondrous volume and stu- 
pendous height, and hearing the as- 
tounding eloquence of its power. As 
in a picture, 

Time*! sombreus touches soon eorrad the 

pieoe ; 
Mellow each tint and i>id each discord cease ; 

Eter tone of light pervades the \> ii<>l<' 
And steals a pensive languor o'er the soul, — 



9 



bo it will be with the great Reformer. 
Those who come after us, though they 
cannot mourn his loss as we do, will sec 



with them. Our minds quickly leave 
the past and are absorbed in the present j 
and even impatient with the present we 



his worth as we do not. The picture leap into the future and inquiringly 

wonder what the morrow will bring forth. 
There is liability of missing the religious 
benefit of this great national affliction, 
because there is a general and confident 
belief that our present Chief Magistrate 
is so exactly suited to the times. For 
this we are thankful. But this does not 
remove the sorrow though it alleviates 
it. We still mourn though we dare not 
murmur. We must be humble, and 
repent, and renew covenant with the 
God of our fathers lest that come upon 
us which is written, "I gave her space 
to repent and she repented not : — Eph- 
raim is joined to his idols, let him alone." 
What then do we mean by this meet- 
ing and these religious services ? We 
mean to express and leave on record our 
appreciation of the private worth and 
the public services of the man we mourn. 
This we have done in comparing him 
with the purest man and most success- 
ful reformer that ever sat upon the 
throne of Judah. But this is not the 
whole of the significance of this occasion. 
We hereby make an implied pledge to 
imitate him, and to sustain, to adhere 
to, and to perpetuate his principles and 
his policies. "The God of Israel said, 
He that ruleth over men must be just, 
ruling in the fear of God." We accept 
this as high authority for the right 
qualification in a ruler. Then we must 
ourselves be that which we require in 
our rulers. If we mourn for the fallen 
Chief Magistrate we thereby praise him : 



of his public life will improve by time. 
Our new nation taking date in 1865 
will connect his name with its future 
prosperity, as we have dated our grand 
development hitherto with the lame of 
Washington and the ever menorable 
1776. We hardly dare look far into the 
future of our history lest our eyes be 
dazzled with the glory which beams 
upon it if a benignant Providence shall 
continue to favor us. In all that his- 
tory the fearful agony to put down the 
great rebellion will not be forgotten, nor 
will he cease to be remembered who 
more than any other man travailed and 
agonized and delivered us. Though he 
died too soon, as the nation's tears have 
testified, he lived long enough to see 
that his work and labor of love had not 
been in vain. He saw of the travail of 
his soul and was satisfied. 

We must not use this occasion for 
useless eulogy. It was not to praise the 
dead and nothing more, that we were 
summoned from our homes and from 
business on this secular day. We are 
called by the President's proclamation 
to public mourning, humiliation and 
prayer, as well as to the commemoration 
of the "prince and the great man" in 
our Israel. It is well to pause again. 
We still mourn, though our elastic 
spirit has risen from the blow under 
which we bent. We live in the midst 
of hurrying events, and these hurry us 



10 



if we praise him we thereby bind our- 
selves to imitate him and carry on his 
work. Therefore when you rise and go 
forth from this day's services, go and 
be as he was; go and according to your 
place and ability do as he did. 

We also mean that while afflicted, we 
are thankful for the great boon of hav- 
ing had such a ruler set ever us in di- 
vine providence. This is a day of 
Thanksgiving in which we remember 
the way in which we have been led out 
of the dark night of the past four years, 
and the leader whom the God of Israel 
gave us. The surest way of receiving 
further favors is to be thankful to the 
Giver for the favors already received. 

It is also for humiliation and prayer 
that we are here. We are humbled in 
shame and in penitence. It is a shame 
that the first and only assassination of a 
Ruler which has occurred in two and a 
half centuries has occurred just where 
among all nations and in the person of 
all men it was least to be expected. — 
Nowhere is life felt to be so secure. 
Nowhere does the just restraint of civil 
government press so lightly. There was 
never a man and is not one alive of more 
kindness of heart than was our murder- 
ed President. In him was no persona' 
oause to provoke the fiendish deed. It 
was only as the representative of Union 
and freedom that the assassin sought 
his life. And it was only as the assas- 
sin was himself the representative of 
ideas at war with our national ideas that 
lie did it. And therefore wo blush for 
fihame that our beautiful country has 
teen the theatre of war against the best 



government which has blest mankind, 
and the scene of the direst tragedy that 
has ever damned its hero to deathless 
infamy. We are humbled and ashamed 
that Abraham Lincoln — purely an Amer- 
ican production, the growth and expos- 
itor of our institutions— could not be 
left to ripen into a still more mature de- 
velopment, and to shadow with his be- 
nign influence when hoary with age and 
piety and wisdom, the millions who 
lament his "untimely taking off." 

There is also the shame for sin which 
well becomes us. From Isaiah's stand- 
point and with his eye, the man of God 
seeing the desecration of the Sabbath, 
and the open profanity, and the shame- 
less intemperance, and the growing lux- 
ury, and the grasping covetousness, and 
the rampant infidelity, — all too preval- 
ent, would be apt to say, "Ah sinful na- 
tion, a people laden with iniquity ! Why 
should ye be stricken any more?" It 
is well that among the many significan- 
ces of the deed of horror and of the les- 
sons of this day of humiliation, that we 
afflict ourselves and fast and search our 
ways and repent and turn to the coven- 
ant God of the fathers of our nation with 
full purpose of new obedience. The 
heart of the people is now soft. Peace 
has come to sot its seal upon the wax 
which the great war has softened. 
Were it mine to engrave the legend to 
be stamped upon the soft, warm, new 
heart of this people, "redeemed, regener* 
ated and disenthralled" from secession 
and rebellion and war and slavery, and 
now unified by all their toil and sorrow, 
it should bo BOUSES! to THE LORJ». 



11 



We are now entering upon a new era 
in our history. It is the era of Justice 
and Democracy. Justice, let us hope, 
and not Policy is to be our national aim 
and individual motive. Hitherto with 
all our boast we have been Oligarchs and 
Aristocrats and not Democrats; for not 
all the men in the nation have been free. 
The new President echoes the heavenly 
message of which the Martyr was the 
mouth of God, that under the necessi- 
ties of the times and the authorities of 
the land, by the sense of mankind, and 
in justice, the bondman is released from 
his shackles. Now, a true christain is a 
democrat ; every man is his neighbor, 
and his neighbor is his brother. We are 
all democrats in name. Let us be 
christians and then we shall be demo- 
crats in fact. And then, like Justice 
whose bandaged eyes sees not a man's 
color or dress or equipage but only seeks 
to know if he is a man, we shall put the 
ballot in the hand that was not too black 
or hard to carry our muskets. We 
■ought to deem him good enough to vote 
who was willing to die for a country 
which we conceded was as much his 
as ours when we asked and accepted 
him to fight for us. The war has 
made the slave a freedman; — let the 
peace which this war has conquer- 
ed make him a freeman. In war 
he was a fellow countryman and a 
fellow soldier. Christianity and de- 
mocracy demand that now he shall be 
recognized and hailed a fellow citizen, 
a. fellow sovereign ; — just as on the plat- 
form of a common salvation we hail all 
who are renewed by the grace of Grod 



by the higher style of fellow christian, 
and brother in the Lord. This is the 
work which our lamented President has 
bequeathed to us. To do it will be the 
fitting evidence of repentance of our past 
sin in withholding from the bondman 
those rights which are defined in the 
great charter of our nation. It will be 
safe, for the negroes are loyal. It is 
just, because they are men. It is due, 
because they have earned it. It is 
necessary, because they will be unpro- 
tected without it. It is consistent, for 
there can be no genuine democracy 
without it. It is the dictate of human- 
ity. It is the spontaneous offering of 
hearts grateful for noble services. It 
is the development and application of 
Christianity. It is the logical corollary 
of the Proclamation of the already world- 
honored Emancipator. 



These are the last services of the 
great funeral. Shall we turn away from 
the grave around which the people have 
gathered to-day without a reflection that 
we too are mortal ? And ean we, dy- 
ing hearers, under the impression that 
we must also pass away, indulge in pride 
or ambition or malice, or shall we pre- 
sume to defer the needful preparation ? 
We could not have been told more em- 
phatically that at such an hour as we 
think not the Son of man cometh. We 
can learn another lesson from the famil- 
iar and favorite lines which were ever 
in the thoughts of the great and good 
man whom we can neither too much 
mourn nor too much eulogize. They 



12 



show ng that he was humble and mind- 
ful of death. 

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast sailing 

cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a 

breath, 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of 

death, 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the 

shroud — 
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ! 



Abraham Lincoln needs no monu- 
ment. His works praise him. When 
the Hebrews forget Moses then his name 



will cease to be known and honored. 
All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for 
Josiah like unto whom was there no king 
before him, neither after him arose 
there any like him. All true men in 
all the world are mourners in the fune- 
ral of our great Reformer. There can 
never again in our country arise one 
like him. The work he did is done for 
all time. 

M His monument shall be his name 
alone." No man can write his epitaph. 

"Could we solidify the tears 
Shed for our Martyr-President, 

Those precious jewels wore enough 
Piled up, to build his monument." 



